arXiv Computation and Language

Same Outputs, Different Scores: Auditing the Unchecked Graders of Multimodal LLM Benchmarks

The paper investigates how the scoring rules used in multimodal large‑language‑model (LLM) benchmarks can dramatically alter reported accuracy. By reproducing official scorers for eight benchmarks and comparing them to a blinded human‑plus‑LLM adjudication, the authors show that the same model outputs can yield accuracy differences of up to 22 points depending on the rule. They argue that no single scoring rule is reliable and recommend that benchmarks report non‑compliance rates and use at least two distinct scoring rules.

arXiv Computer Vision
Oct 12

Auditing VLM Benchmarks from Existing Evaluation Runs

The paper introduces an audit layer for vision‑language model benchmarks that reuses per‑question artifacts from evaluation runs to assess the benchmark itself. Six detectors analyze saved outputs, and an additional text‑only rerun removes visual inputs to produce per‑question reports and aggregate statistics, including permutation‑null excess and interval estimates. Applying this method to the MMStar benchmark reveals that 20.2% of its questions show no accuracy gain from images, with a small but significant excess in mathematics and science categories, and identifies questions where all models chose the same non‑gold option.

By Denis Degtiarev, Anna Gromova, Sergey Katkov, Artem Mikhailin, Safina Mukhamedshina, Albert Nasybullin, Karina Shaikhutdinova, Artem Tuzov
arXiv AI
Aug 26

Beyond Accuracy: A Dual-Judge Evaluation Protocol for Vision-Language Models in Legally Grounded Tasks

The paper introduces a dual‑judge evaluation protocol for vision‑language models in legally grounded tasks, pairing a 0‑10 quality judge with a strict binary semantic‑equivalence judge. Using a controlled UK traffic‑sign interpretation task, the authors analyze 4,680 evaluations across visibility and occlusion conditions, finding moderate association between judges and an asymmetric Type II error pattern that is most pronounced under heavy occlusion. The protocol requires only one additional LLM call and reveals quality‑trustworthiness signals that single‑judge methods miss.

By Su Myat Noe, Ha Thanh Nguyen, May Myo Zin, Ken Satoh
arXiv AI
Sep 24

Ask Which, Not How Good: Sizing Benchmarks Scored by an LLM

The study analyzes 373,019 judgments from LLM‑scored benchmarks, decomposing variance into system, item, judge, and interaction components via generalizability theory. It finds that with a single judge, generalizability converges to a ceiling determined by the system‑by‑judge variance, which is substantially lower in pairwise preference settings, allowing one judge to suffice. The research also reveals significant biases in presentation order and highlights that many published win‑rate claims fall below the measured floor of the benchmarks.

By Atul Anand
arXiv AI
Oct 28

Scoring-Rule Sensitivity in LLM Evaluation: Evidence from Indian Financial Regulatory Text

The paper investigates how different scoring rules affect the ranking of large language models (LLMs) on the IndiaFinBench benchmark, which contains 406 expert‑annotated items covering regulatory interpretation, numerical reasoning, contradiction detection, and temporal reasoning. Using twelve LLMs evaluated under strict string‑matching, a cross‑model judge, and a composite regime, the authors find that model rankings vary dramatically across regimes, with no significant rank correlation (Spearman ρ = -0.273). Item‑level analysis reveals that a substantial portion of items are answered identically by all models, while a higher‑discrimination band isolates more challenging cases.

By Rajveer Singh Pall
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

How Far Can Sub-3B Open Language Models Go in Zero-Shot Essay Scoring on an 8 GB Consumer GPU?

The study evaluates zero‑shot essay scoring using sub‑3B open language models that run locally on a single 8 GB consumer GPU. Four instruction‑tuned models (Qwen2.5‑0.5B, 1.5B, 3B and SmolLM2‑1.7B) were tested on all eight ASAP‑AES prompts, comparing rubric‑decomposed versus holistic prompting, different aggregation methods, and trait‑mapping strategies. Results show rubric‑decomposed prompting consistently outperforms holistic prompting, trait‑mapping is sensitive to calibration, and longer essays reduce error, yet the best local configuration (macro QWK 0.388) still falls short of human agreement and a length‑only baseline, suggesting these models are best suited for formative, human‑supervised feedback.

By Nguyen Dung Son, Dang Quang Minh, Nguyen Huu Loi, Truong Viet Vu, Nguyen Thai Anh
arXiv Computation and Language
1d ago

Parsed Text Understates Vision-Language Models: From Below to Above Expert Agreement on Fine-Grained Facial Emotion

The paper introduces EmoNet‑Face‑HQ, a benchmark of 2,500 AI‑generated portraits each evaluated by four psychology experts across 40 emotion categories. It shows that most vision‑language models (VLMs) perform no better than random guessing unless fine‑tuned, but that changing the prompt to a simple yes/no per category can raise a VLM’s agreement with experts from chance to near expert levels. When evaluated using probability‑of‑yes scores on the five most‑agreed‑upon categories, eleven open‑weight VLMs achieve a quadratic‑weighted κ of 0.425, below the 0.468 two‑expert agreement, yet their average probability‑of‑yes score (0.553) matches the benchmark’s fine‑tuned model and outperforms it in three cases without any training.

By Tobias Hallmen, Fabian Deuser, Robin-Nico Kampa, Norbert Oswald, Elisabeth Andr\'e
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 24

Feed the Panel Dimensions, Not Verdicts: Rubric-Decomposed Fusion of Vision-Language Aesthetic Judges

The paper investigates whether panels of vision‑language models (VLMs) can reliably judge image aesthetics. It shows that a panel of holistic judges rarely outperforms its best member, but when each model scores images on five rubric‑defined dimensions and these dimension scores are fused across model families, the panel consistently beats the best single VLM on two datasets (EVA and PARA). The study demonstrates that the value of a panel depends on the type of input it receives, and that dimension‑based fusion yields measurable gains at the cost of additional labeling and API usage.

By Amit Jadhav, Shaurya Beriwala, Beomjin Kim
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 23

Joint or Per-Option? Compact Encoders for Closed-Set Decisions from 17 Million to 1 Billion Parameters

The paper investigates how compact an encoder can be for closed‑set decision tasks in language‑model pipelines, comparing joint versus per‑option scoring. In a 32‑million‑parameter study, per‑option scoring outperforms joint scoring by 5.8 chance‑corrected skill points on a 37‑benchmark suite, and two external benchmarks corroborate this advantage. Across six released joint encoders ranging from 17 million to 1 billion parameters, the 68‑ and 150‑million‑parameter models surpass a 435‑million‑parameter DeBERTa‑v3 zero‑shot classifier on 209 overlapping tasks and match it on 145 unseen tasks, while the smallest model processes a median request in 14 ms versus 728 ms for the classifier.

By Tardelli Ronan Coelho Stekel
arXiv AI
Sep 25

Style, Not Self: Surface Cues Explain Zero-Shot Code Attribution by Large Language Models

The study investigates whether large language models (LLMs) can identify code they have generated, potentially leading to self‑favoring or collusive behavior. Experiments across 15 model‑benchmark pairs show that models can attribute authorship with balanced accuracy between 49% and 58%, but this ability largely stems from superficial cues such as solution length. Removing surface features like docstrings, comments, and type hints reduces attribution accuracy to chance, indicating that surface cues drive the effect.

By Ehsan Barkhordar, Surendrabikram Thapa